By EWAN KENNEDY 
4 September 2006

Mazda has taken a pragmatic approach in offering a folding hardtop variant in its MX-5 range. In many ways the MX-5 has been one of the purest of all cars, taking the minimalist route that lovers of sports car love. But it has now broken from that and opted for the added convenience of a powered hardtop instead of the folding soft-top we have seen since 1989.

The purists will complain that this has added 38 kg to a car that has previously been a leader in mass reduction. However, Mazda still sells the MX-5 with the soft-top so everyone should be happy.

The happiest of all will be those who have dreamt of owning a Mazda MX-5 but have been reluctant to do so because their car has to be permanently parked in the street, possibly in a theft-risk area. Obviously a hardtop offers much more security.

Mazda MX-5 with a powered hardtop is called MX-5 RC, for Rigid Convertible, rather than CC, or Coupe Convertible, the title given by other makers in this rapidly expanding class of open-top convenience.

The chief engineer of the Mazda MX-5, Takao Kijima, travelled to Australia to show off his new baby and proudly told us that his team had managed to not only minimise extra weight, but also build the fastest folding hardtop of them all. A stopwatch will tell you it only takes 12 seconds to convert the MX-5 RC from a closed car to a fully open one. So there's plenty of time at a red traffic light to carry out the task.

Note that you still have to fasten/unfasten a manual centre catch at the top of the windscreen before pushing the button to power the roof. Many other competitors do everything automatically.

Also clever is the fact that the volume of the boot hasn’t been affected by the new roof mechanism, indeed it is actually fractionally larger than before as the tail of the car has been raised marginally to make space for the roof. Instead of the roof folding into the top of the boot, as is the norm in this class, Mazda fits its roof behind the back seat.

However, the chief reason for the roof being so light and taking up so little space is that there's not a lot of it. Competitors have a larger roof because their cars are often four-seaters. There's no denying the cockpit of the MX-5 is a somewhat cramped area. My 1.82-metre frame just fits in the driver’s seat, but in the passenger’s side I can’t straighten my legs.

The added weight of the little Mazda Roadster Coupe wasn’t really noticeable during our introductory drive program based around the Queensland/NSW border region. The 118 kW, 2.0-litre engine still doesn’t have a huge amount of grunt and you have to work it through the revs to get decent performance. This is certainly no hardship as the six-speed manual gearbox is a delightful unit that snick-snicks its way willingly from ratio to ratio.

And the handling; oh, the handling! This tiny roadster is so well balanced that it’s a dream to drive hard and fast no matter how demanding the road. The purists may bemoan the introduction of a power-operated hardtop, but they will still love the way this car reacts to driver input and road surfaces.

Incidentally, an ESP (electronic stability program) has been fitted, not only to the Roadster Coupe, but also to the soft-top as well should a clumsy or inattentive driver get totally screwed up. And drivers who don’t fall into that category will be pleased to note there's an off/on switch for the system.

Mazda anticipates the new RC variant of the MX-5 will comprise about 60 per cent of all sales. The MX-5 RC is priced at $47,660 plus on-road costs. An automatic model comes in at $49,835. Leather trim is part of the package.

Those prices compare favourably with that of the MX-5 soft-top, at $44,730 ($46,905 auto). Note that the soft-top is also offered with cloth instead of leather trim, with a price tag of $42,870 ($45,045 auto).